My Anime Waifu Lives With Me!
by Durecel
Summary: Ever wondered what would happen if one day your waifu or husbando entered your life somehow? Well that's what I'm going to try to explore! Set in the real world, I look at how my college life would have differed if Brandish Mu had lived with me. A first - read poor - attempt at slice-of-life comedy. Pairing is superficial, not sexual/romantic.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: The following is a fan made parody. Both the Fairy Tail and Fairy Tail Zer** **ø manga are created and owned by Hiro Mashima and Kodansha Comics. The anime is produced by A1 Pictures and licenced by Madman Entertainment, Funimation and Anime Limited. Please support the official release when available in your country.**

 **Any original characters have been created by the author, and any passing resemblance or similarity to real people should be considered coincidental unless stated otherwise. In such an event, it should be considered as a caricature and not an accurate representation of that or those persons.**

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Alright, how do we start this off? Well I suppose a little bit of background is in order: You've probably had a look at the summary – at least I assume you have, if not go do so, I didn't spend all of thirty seconds on it for you to ignore it – and thought that looks vaguely interesting; then had a look at the filter tags – Rated M, ok should be mature enough, English, yeah I can read that, genres we'll gloss over for the minute, chapters, words and publication/update date aren't important – and seen the pairings tag; Brandish and OC.

Now I know what you're thinking; this is going to be some weeabo who's put himself in the series all mighty and powerful and then have Brandish drop her knickers the first second she sees him. Well you're wrong. First off, this is rated M because it might have mature themes in it later down the line – yes that could mean by the end of the first chapter, could be the next paragraph; even I don't know yet – and I just typically put stuff as M. Second off; I've not put myself into the franchise nor have I made myself uber strong for that matter. No, I've pulled Brandish out of the franchise. More on that later. If it cheers you up though, weeabo is probably an accurate description. So, kudos to you.

Let's go back to the genre filter tags, it's down as humour because the whole theme of this strikes me as though it'd be good as a slice of life comedy. There's one issue – maybe two – with that, it's only slight though, you probably won't even notice it. OK, you ready for it? I don't know how to write comedy. Honestly, it's not as much of an issue as you're thinking. Promise! Wait, what do you mean you want to know what the second issue is? That wasn't part of the deal! OK, fine, the second issue is that I hate slice of life comedy typically. There you go, an insight into my cruel sense of humour; making myself write a genre I don't even like!

Anyway, with those rather minor caveats disclosed let's get to the crux of this little story and what is basically the plot – if you can call it a plot…

Our little story is set in a south coast university town in England. Yes, I'm trying to keep the exact town vague even though that description narrows it down to about one of three cities, and I'll glaze over the fact the exact town is an island and not a city on the mainland. I'll also gloss over the fact that the university was once a polytechnic- so much for ambiguity… Let's just forget about those admissions and focus on what's important.

My name is Alistair, for this story I'm a university student that's just started his second year and already I have a major report to finish, which is what I've just finished working on for today. It had been a particularly tedious and long day in the library. The difficult bit was done about two weeks ago when the whole class had to make their way and conduct fieldwork in the pissing rain in Anglesey, predominantly on our own. Now came the tedious bit; making professional maps for the report.

For anyone that's never drawn a map, here's a tip; get someone else to do it, preferably if they have a graphics tablet. No one in our cohort had one, which meant we had to draw our maps on a computer screen using a mouse. Every tried drawing anything decent on Microsoft Paint? Yeah, that's about the size of the challenge.

Fortunately, I'd had enough after seven or so hours on it. There's only so much click drag, click drag, clicking and bloody dragging one can take for a day after all. On the way home, I'd bought some things for dinner then just powered on for the 20-minute walk between the library and my accommodation.

Where I live is pretty much slap bang in the middle of the city, well almost. Basically if I wanted to go anywhere important to the west; town centre, shopping district, the university or the public docks, it's a 20 minute walk, if I wanted to go to one of the university's outskirt campuses to the east; it's a 20 minute walk, and if I wanted to the seaside to the south; yep, you guessed it, 20 minutes. If I wanted to go to hospital to the north though, that'd be an hour; providing I wasn't dying or missing limbs. That would take a smidge longer to walk or hop.

The area isn't the nicest in town, yes, it's in a desirable neighbourhood, but it's in the north of said neighbourhood: Which means it's on the border with one of the roughest neighbourhoods and the influence from one on the other is skewed in the dodgy one's favour annoyingly. It is convenient though so can't complain too much, especially as work is a hop skip and a jump away at the local football club.

The house itself is a two-storey terraced in the middle of the street, built in the Victorian era I think. Originally it was a three-bedroom joint, but with the local poly being upgraded to a university a lot of houses have been converted into student lets, particularly in this area, if the ever-present stench of cannabis is anything to go by.

Where once upon a time my house had a proper living room downstairs, it's now been butchered into two bedrooms with the kitchen doubling up as the living space instead. At least in the landlord's mind it does; a dilapidated sofa does not a living room make.

I share the house with four other students and an immigrant – more on him later – and we rub along pretty well. None of us are that outgoing, some are more than others, but we aren't the type to host house parties till four AM. Three of us have lived in this house for a year already, having met at a Student Union housing association thing, myself being one of them, and the other three joined us at the end of September. One of the new three is a mate from my course, one is his flatmate from last year and the immigrant sort of tagged along with him.

At this point I'm hoping you've noticed the glaring flaw in my maths; three bed house, converted into a five-bed house, but there are six of us. Yeah, it was a bit of a shock to the three of us that stayed for this year when my mate's mate turned up with his migrant mate, but we collectively went with; 'Ok, just don't tell the landlord – make yourself scarce when he's here – and if HMRC come knocking for council tax; they're your problem.' Fortunately, he's an EU national which means if anyone did come knocking we wouldn't have to choose between HMRC or the Border Force. Would be a whole different kettle of fish if this was 2021…

So, who are we six? Well, there's me who lives above the kitchen. You're going to learn about me as we go on, so I won't bore you with the details here. There's Wee Thomas, the electrical engineer that lives downstairs closest to the kitchen. Poor Jimmy, the forensic psychologist who lives above the front door on the opposite end of the hallway to me, we make up the original triumvirate if you will. We then have my course-mate Posh Kieran who lives downstairs right at the front of the house – unlucky mate! Finally, we have Hairy Daniel the media person and Czech Iggy both of whom ended up with the smallest room in the house between Jimmy and I upstairs, despite them being the biggest lads out of all of us.

If you're wondering what the epithets are for, blame Jimmy as he started it off by jokingly calling Kieran Posh Twat – that's the polite version of what he called him by the way – when he was cooking pheasant one day. From there we all ended up with Twat names in a twisted homage to the Spice Girls. Jimmy got Poor from me as a counter to Kieran's Posh, Tom got Wee because despite being the oldest before Dan and Iggy moved in he was the shortest. Dan got Hairy because despite having the most body hair of all of us, he's balding on top. Iggy got Czech because he's Polish. It was his idea, not mine. What's mine you ask? We were going to go with Ginger originally, issues with that though were a) there's already Ginger Spice and we wanted something unique, and b) Ginger Ali sounds like a brothel. Huh, on retrospect probably should've gone with that… We went with Miserable in the end because of my brilliantly depressing and morbid sense of humour. Yeah, should've gone with Ginger in hindsight.

Once I made it home, I went straight to the kitchen to put the provisions away in my cupboard and the shared fridge. Walking past Kieran's room, I'd found it odd there wasn't a light on as he'd left the library at about lunch time. In the kitchen Tom was microwaving something at the time, we exchanged pleasantries as had become custom.

"You alright mate?" I don't know why we southerners do this as a greeting, or why the accepted response is 'you alright?' back, but it just seems to be the regional standard. None of us were what you'd call conventional southern though so usually we'd get an actual answer to the question.

"Yeah, I'm alright. You alright?" Thomas was not the talkative type; you had to engage him in conversation otherwise you'd get nothing out of him. I think that was one of the other reasons why Jimmy labelled him as Wee Twat.

"Not too bad. Is Kieran in do you know, there's no light on in his room?"

"I thought we was going home this weekend?"

"Oh of course he is! Forgot he was going to see a concert tomorrow." See, this is important to the plot here. Because Posh and I are on the same course, we talk with each other more than the rest of our housemates – except for Hairy and Czech because the two had to share a room. Typically, Kieran would come up to my room if he wanted a second opinion about an assignment we had to do. Not because I'm the smarter of the pair, we're of similar intellect if grades are any indication – if anything I reckon Posh is slightly more intelligent than me; but don't tell him I said that!

Anyhow, Tom soon left the kitchen and I quickly followed, heading straight for my room – it would've been strange if I'd followed Tom into his room. I must say I got hellish lucky with my room; south facing, furthest away from the street, probably tied for second largest and because the kitchen below was extended it meant I had a makeshift balcony. The only downside is that it was the only large room without a double-bed.

I should probably explain at this point as well that Dan and Iggy share a room, not a bed by the way. Not sure what their sleeping arrangement is but that's not important right now, nor will it ever be!

Having finally made my way to the closest thing to home I had whilst at university – yes, I consider my room home, not the house – it was now time to kick back and relax. When you walk into my room this is what you'll see: Directly in front of you is a 38" LCD TV sat atop a chest of drawers, behind the door is a stack of shelves with a cupboard next to it, in front of the cupboard is a full length mirror next to which is a desk with an office chair in the middle of the room. The single bed is next to the window, perpendicular to the desk.

At this point – 2000 plus words in – I suspect you're foaming at the mouth wondering what any of this has to do with Fairy Tail, or if I've posted this by accident on as opposed to . Worry not! This is where the 'magic' starts.

As today is Friday, that means the latest chapter gets published – illegally – across various dodgy websites in English for those of us that can't read Japanese. Just going to throw this out there though; if you enjoy any manga series, support the author by buying the volumes when they're available in your country. Wait, what do you mean FT's finished? Ah, probably should've mentioned that this is happening in the past when it was still going.

I started my laptop up on my bed – it's far comfier than the office chair – connected it to the TV before loading up one of the scanlator websites and subsequently the chapter cover page of the latest FT chapter. Before reading the chapter though I got distracted by YouTube… Yeah, YouTube and definitely not the wank-bank. I may have lost track of time slightly as it was pitch black in my room except for the light of the two screens. Realising that I needed a light on, as well as to start making dinner, I left the scanlator tab open on the TV screen and made the executive decision to go and be productive. Oh, how such a simple decision can change your life.

Pro tip; if you've got really long thighs – like over a foot long – and a history of minor hip problems, never sit cross-legged. Standing up was an instant regret as my hips had forgotten that they were supposed to keep the top half above the lower half. Stumbling over I reached out to grab onto something solid: I'd aimed for the top of the chest of drawers. I may have missed slightly.

"Oh shit," Based on the sound of metal on wood, I was fairly convinced I'd hit the tele, resulting in it rocking back and forth. I was also completely convinced that my hand had gone through the screen as I could feel whatever an LCD screen is made of around halfway up my right forearm. I really did not want to look at it, until it dawned on me that I'd not gone up in a blue light nor were there sparks flying around setting the carpet on fire.

Looking at the screen my arm was in it, a ripple effect spread across the screen like one of those cliché scenes in just about every dramatic film, TV series or anime ever when a leaf or droplet of water falls in a pond. The other thing that surprised me, in conjunction with the lack of sparks and fire, was that I couldn't feel the wall behind the TV. Now I should explain that my TV was considered as a flat screen when it was new in like 2010ish, but it must've been about four inches deep. Trust me on this; from the end of my middle finger to halfway up my forearm is more than four inches.

"OK, pretty sure that's not what's supposed to happen when you put your hand through a screen." I thought aloud when I glanced around the back and saw that true enough, my arm hadn't come out the back casing. Flicking the light on made me realise that it was almost as if my arm was stuck in quick mud – which for those of you not geologically inclined is pretty similar to quicksand only not quite as quick as Hollywood likes to make you believe – because my arm was not budging out of the screen, at least not without a lot of effort.

Despite knowing that if this was quick mud that the dumbest option would be to put my other hand in it, I went to put my left hand in it. However, when I reached out to do so, my fingertips touched the screen as if it was still solid, and no amount of pressure was changing that fact.

At this point I just grasped hold of the top of the TV with my left hand, placed my left foot at the base of the chest of drawers, my right foot parallel to it and just decided to heave my arm out with brute force. On retrospect, I'm so glad I didn't just decide to pick my geology hammer up and take the business end of it to the screen! Using the purchase provided by my left foot's position in addition to abdominal strength I could feel my arm slip out of the screen. I realised then that the screen felt slippery around the circumference of the patch of skin it was contacting, however I could see and feel from the few centimetres I'd recovered that my skin wasn't wet. Nor was it sticky, thank god!

At the same time, I realised there was something grasped around my wrist. Having done fourteen years' worth of karate I recognised the feeling of another hand holding my wrist without seeing it. Flexing my hand around in the ether I found the wrist of the hand holding mine and grabbed back, however the other hand didn't flinch nor did it grasp harder.

"I don't know who or what you are, but can I have my hand back, please!" My protests must've fallen on deaf ears as they didn't oblige my request. Whilst negotiating the release of my hand I continued to pull it out of the TV anyway. In doing so, the offending hand began to emerge still attached to my wrist. It had beautifully supple white skin, which then made me realise just how soft their skin was, as well as this I could see that they were wearing purple nail polish, on their thumbnail at least.

I decided to change tactics a little bit, standing on my right leg I put my left foot on the front of one of the draws and pushed against it whilst at the same time pulling with my right arm. Obviously, I must have managed to make the chest move as it hit the radiator behind it. "C'mon, give me my hand. I really don't want to have to explain this to any of my flatmates!" Passive aggressive whispering didn't do anything either. Realising that brute force was doing more than negotiation I doubled my efforts and with one last simultaneous push and pull my hand was freed! From the TV. The hand from beyond the box still had a hold of it… Hurray for small victories I suppose?

Two options sprung to mind – well three, but the third one involved my geology hammer, and without elaborating too much but still getting the point across as to why it's a dumb idea; I'm right handed – the first option was to use my grip on their wrist to force theirs to slacken, then the second was to use my left hand to pry their fingers off. Despite the hammer option, I didn't want to hurt them strangely; all this hand had done was hold onto my wrist. There'd been no malicious act otherwise. Rightly or wrongly I went with prying their hand open.

Much to my surprise whoever the rogue hand belonged to didn't attempt to re-latch onto me and thus my hand was free! Even further to my surprise though was what happened next: The hand didn't just flop or fall back into the screen like I'd kind of expected it to. Instead it just hung their limply.

Being ever the pragmatist, I weighed my options up: Leave the arm there and hope no one notices when they pop their head round my door, push the arm back in and forget this ever happened, or pull the arm along with who or whatever it belongs to completely out and live with the consequences potentially for the rest of my life. I went with the second option.

Slight issue with that though; no matter what I did, it would not budge backwards at all. Left, right, up, down or forward were no issue at all, but could I get it to return from once it came? Could I fuck. However, when I'd accidentally pulled it out slightly a hiked-up sleeve started to come through. Looking at the material, specifically the style and colour of it, got my curiosity up. It was a brownish gold colour with purple flower-like patterns arranged seemingly at random. Against my better judgement, I pulled the material down toward the wrist, where I could see that the opening was quite wide and draped.

Quite why I'm going into such detailed description is beyond me right now, as you know as well as I do who's arm this is hanging out of my tele. However, I am nothing if not stubborn. As such I shall continue with it even if it is an exercise in futility!

Grabbing hold of the arm with both hands I started pulling on it, this eventually led to a head of green hair to emerge complete with bluish purple crosses on either side.

"Holy shit…" Realising who it was – let's face it; green hair, crosses either side, frilly sleeved jacket with floral type pattern in an FT fanfic does kind of give it away – I redoubled my efforts, being careful with their head until I managed to get their shoulders out. Once I could get my hands under their armpits, pulling them out became so much easier.

Now, with where my arms are, and you having guessed who it is in them, you're probably expecting some sort of comment or joke about said person's breasts. Yeah, not happening. I'm saving them for later. The comments and jokes. I'm saving the comments and jokes for later! Gawd!

When her legs started to emerge, I moved around so that my left arm could keep hold of them whilst keeping her upper body up with my right. Basically, I'd be carrying her bridal style once her knees were out.

Having pulled the woman out of the TV, I proceeded to place her on my bed, firstly checking to see if she was breathing which thankfully she was, looking at her it appeared that she was asleep. Secondly, I took her sandals off – I don't care who she is, no one is having their shoes on my bed –thirdly I faffed about to get her coat off, placing it on the hook on the back of my door, leaving her in her matching brownish gold spotted bikini, before finally placing the duvet over her.

Taking a step back I regarded her serene face. It looked so peaceful, when finally, the penny dropped:

"Fuck me, I just pulled Brandish Mu out of my TV!"

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 **Author's Notes (A/N):**

 **Right, that seems as good a place as any to stop for the time being. I hope you have enjoyed this first chapter, I've enjoyed writing it at least.**

 **The whole purpose of this work is to see if I can write comedy, or at the very least humour. Personally, I believe that humour is the most difficult genre to convey, along with romance, primarily because my sense of humour is based predominantly on sarcasm, dry wit and black humour, all of which can be an acquired taste. Couple that with my idiolect and it can come across as whatever the opposite of funny is; serious or God forbid; boring. As well as this, it's difficult to find something you've come up with comical. Or at least I find that.**

 **The rest of this fic depends on how it is received by you dear reader. If you enjoyed it, but didn't find it humorous, then I'll continue it in the general category but attempt to put the odd comedic element in as opposed to trying to make the majority funny.**

 **It's with trepidation that I look forward to feedback, be that in the form of a review, a favourite or an alert. Regardless of how well it is received I shall at least work on the elements I have in my head now, both of which should appear in the next chapter. If you have any questions, you can leave them in a review or DM me and I'll try to answer them to the best of my ability next chapter.**

 **Until then, thank you for reading this and I hope you enjoy the rest of your day!**


	2. Chapter 2

Looking at the green haired woman currently sleeping in my bed, I found myself totally dumbstruck. What on Earth am I supposed to do when she wakes up? How am I going to explain this? Is she going to think she's still in Earthland? Is her memory intact? Is she going to try and kill me? Does her magic still work? All these things and more were going through my head.

Those last two questions in particular stuck in my head. Today chapter 501 had been published, but images of chapter 488 flashed clear as day through my head. Specifically, when Mest had manipulated Brandish into shanking August. "Where's her dagger?"

There was no way she stored it on her person, not with that outfit anyway. I turned to her coat and started patting it down as if I knew what I was doing. I found it in the left inside pocket, tucked away in its scabbard so as not to cut the coat or whoever lifted it out.

The blade itself was much smaller than I thought it was going to be, however with the latest chapter having revealed the name of her magic, it was obvious that Brandish would make extensive use of Command T on it.

Just then my stomach began to grumble, realising it was getting late and I still hadn't eaten. I stashed the knife down the back of my jeans, still in it's scabbard as I'd no intention of carving meat off my butt. Whether Brandish would be of similar opinion when she woke up though would remain to be seen.

With the knife down my butt it was a precarious trip downstairs to the kitchen. I'd checked beforehand to see just how deep a sleep Brandish was in, put it this way; I get the feeling she'd sleep through one of North Korea's nukes going off if one hit us somehow. The kitchen lights were still on, Iggy had set up his laptop up on the coffee table in front of the crappy old sofa and was playing League from the looks of it. Based on the odd mutter in Polish it seemed that he was playing with his friends from back home.

"Dzień dobry," I said walking in, getting a smile out of him and a dzień dobry back. I should point out that I'd said good morning in Polish to him, at like half ten at night. In the few weeks I'd known Iggy that had become our greeting; to say good morning to each other regardless of whether it was morning or not. In that same time, I'd also learned that there was no way he'd engage in conversation if he was playing League.

On the one hand, this was a good thing because it meant I didn't have to speak much if at all, on the other it meant that I had to act normal whilst quietly crapping myself on the off-chance Brandish woke up whilst I was out of the room.

Regardless though, I started making something resembling food. Normally when I cook I take twice as long as I should, so usually if a recipe says it'll take thirty minutes total to prep and cook, I'll end up taking an hour. Today however I must've looked like someone in Hell's Kitchen, as I'd made my meal in the recipe's stated time of 40 minutes. Whether I'll ever achieve that again is anyone's guess.

The dish was out of a student cookbook, Poor Jimmy described the dish as my 'casserole that's not a casserole' which was an accurate description to be honest, it was officially titled as being sausage with apple and mustard. According to said book the amounts were enough for two people; however, I'd typically eat the whole lot myself. Not today though.

Whether Czech noticed me pour the meal out into two bowls or not, I don't know, but he didn't make any mention of it at all so I'm going to assume he was concentrating solely on his match.

Walking back into my room I was relieved to see Brandish was still asleep. I'd had visions of her going exploring, potentially trying to put either Jimmy or Daniel in choke holds, whilst I was cooking.

By the time I'd finished eating mine, I was beginning to want Brandish to wake up as the one I'd made her was crying out to be eaten. Fortunately, I was stopped in my tracks as a groan escaped the Shield's lips. It was followed by ruffling under the bed sheets as she began to stir and stretch. Her eyes flickered open briefly, pupils slowly taking in her surroundings before closing again.

There was a pause as the cogs in her head turned before Brandish bolted upright completely wide eyed.

"Where am I?" Brandish asked on reflex, obviously not recognising my room as somewhere she knew – which she wouldn't to be fair. At that I noticed two things straight away; she speaks English instead of Japanese, and she has an American accent. She looked toward me, then down to her hands: I suspect to check if she'd been put in sealing stone cuffs. Realising she wasn't, Brandish cast her beautiful emerald eyes upon me again. "Who are you?"

"I'm Alistair, and you're currently in my bedroom." Hearing that she was in a strange man's bedroom, Brandish gave me a cynical look, making me suspect that the Shield of Spriggan didn't quite trust me. Despite my nervousness – seriously, my heart must've been visible with how hard it was banging on my ribcage – I tried to appear calm and relax, a skill I was apparently quite good at. "What's your name? Do you know?" Brandish seemed to hesitate, concerning me into thinking she might have amnesia.

"My name is Brandish Mu. I am one of the Twelve Shields of Emperor Spriggan and a loyal citizen of the Alvarez Empire." Phew, no immediate sign of amnesia I thought. Now to find out what she was doing before waking up in my bed. "Are you from Fairy Tail?"

"No, I'm not even a mage. Why don't you tell me what happened before you woke up?"

"I was asleep." Ask a stupid question…

"I know that much, I meant beforehand!" I cried out incredulously. "What were you doing, do you remember?" The Spriggan 12 member ignored my outburst, glancing down at the bedsheets as she recalled what happened.

"I was in the middle of negotiating with Lucy Heartfilia, her friend and his cat, when Neinhart interrupted us. He had been enchanted with power from Irene, the strongest woman of the Twelve. Despite my inability to harm him, Lucy's friend – E.N.D. according to His Majesty – defeated Neinhart in a single blow and insisted that Fairy Tail could defeat us…" Brandish appeared morose when regaling her tale to me. She seemed sad.

"Well, you don't seem to be suffering from amnesia. So that's good." I smiled at her, passing her the bowl of food and a fork to eat it with. "Here, you must be hungry." Reluctantly she took them from me, before looking at the food with apprehension.

"This looks awful." I let out an unimpressed laugh at her brutally honest remark. One of the things I liked about Brandish was her blunt manner of telling it how she saw it, however, I was not exactly happy to be on the receiving end of her scathing observation.

"Ever heard the phrase 'don't bite the hand that feeds you?'"

"I didn't ask you to feed me."

"Just eat it."

"How do I know you're not a spy and that you haven't poisoned this?" With my right eyebrow twitching irritably, I grabbed the fork from my bowl and pointedly stabbed a piece of sausage from Brandish's bowl and proceeded to eat it. Once I swallowed it I showed her it was irrefutably gone.

"Happy?"

Brandish didn't admit it, but she conceded that I wasn't out to poison her at least and she began to tuck in. With a forkful in her mouth I watched as her expression went through these phases; initially unimpressed, then intrigued as the various flavours danced around in her mouth before arriving at utterly delighted!

"This is delicious! What is it?" I was taken aback by how her mood had taken a complete 180. Having said that, the look of happiness on her face was simply adorable! As she continued to eat I told her that it was pork sausage, apple, potato, diced onion, vegetable stock, mustard and peach chutney with a little salt and pepper to season it.

The mock casserole went down a storm, Brandish commenting on all the flavours, particularly the sweet juiciness of the apples and the tangy peach chutney. Clearly, she had a bit of a sweet tooth. However, all was not well. Despite appearing happy, I was soon to learn that it was a front of her suspicious and logical nature.

"What have you done to my magic?" I blinked at her in surprise as her expression had changed once again from joy to stoic. Unable to give her anything more than a dumbstruck 'what' – something I suspect she took as feigning ignorance – she glowered at me as she elaborated. "Ever since I woke up, I've been trying to change the mass of various things in this room; you included. And yet, nothing has worked. You're just a normal human with no magic, so what have you done to me?"

Realising that I was going to have to explain that she wasn't in Ishgar anymore – to paraphrase The Wizard of Oz – it was time to turn the TV on again, because I'd turned it off earlier. And guess what, I was greeted with an 'input source' message… With the lid on my laptop shut, it had gone into sleep mode, and where was my laptop? I'd forgotten to move it last chapter, so Brandish's fine arse was currently sat on it…

"Quite the scatter-brain, aren't you?" There was the deadpan waspishness again, spoken with melancholic disdain that had originally endeared me to her character. How I was beginning to dislike it.

"Anyway… Tell me something, Brandish. Where do you think you are right now?"

"Your bed." The Shield answered matter-of-factly, yet her face betrayed her voice as she looked perplexed by the question.

"Alright, smartarse. What town, or better yet; what continent?" Brandish raised her eyebrow questioningly at me, as if she truly believed me to be stupid. In some respects, she's not wrong on that one, that's beside the point though!

"Magnolia, in Ishgar. What are you getting at?"

"Not anymore, you aren't. I don't know how to tell you this Brandish, you're not in Earthland anymore." I decided to let that sink in for a minute.

"You're a terrible liar." Not the reaction I was expecting!

"You're not wrong there." Opening my laptop up – I wasn't sure if I was happy about how warm the lid was, bearing in mind where and more specifically who it had just been under for nearly an hour – I unlocked it, and with that the cover page of chapter 501 appeared on the 38" TV screen for all to see. Should probably have closed the blinds earlier.

Leaning over Brandish legs' I pulled the cord for the blackout blind, shutting the out the outside world. I saw the look of disbelief and bewilderment spread out on her face as I sat back in the office chair. She was looking at herself on the screen completely dumbstruck.

"W-what is the meaning of this?" Hearing her voice tremble, I got on my knees and took a hold of her right hand in mine and placed my left on top in an effort to soothe the green-haired woman.

"You're a character in a long running manga series called Fairy Tail. And somehow, for whatever reason, I pulled you out of that TV there." If it wasn't for the fact it was true, I'd have called my attempt at an explanation absurd. So instead I'm going to call the author absurd.

"Why? Why did you pull me from my home?" Agitated, Brandish took her hand back, glaring daggers at me.

"I tried to push you back in – God knows I tried – but for some reason I could not physically do it. My hand went through that screen, and when I tried to pull it out, out came your hand with it. I couldn't just leave it dangling there!" Sitting back on my chair once more, I watched as she glanced at the screen once again.

To my surprise, Brandish threw the covers off, before proceeding to stand in front of and place her hand on the monitor. She put it just over the speech bubble in the bottom panel. Barely above a whisper she spoke her mind:

"What a pain," Defeated, she dropped her head. Her hand slowly slid off the screen as she turned around to face me. Unsure what to do, I did the only thing I felt I could – apart from stare at her stunning visage. I stood up, grasping her shoulders as I did so, surprising her. Looking into my eyes, I saw a look of longing in hers. If ginger's like me had souls, she'd have stared straight into mine.

"Brandish, I will do everything within my power – what little there is of it – to help you in whatever you choose to do. Except kill me, I won't help with that."

"You're terrible at reassuring people."

* * *

After that, Brandish told me she needed the bathroom which opened up a whole other can of worms… I live in a house full of guys, it's currently midnight-ish on a Friday night and Brandish's choice of clothing is basically a bikini. An arguably ill-fitting bikini. You can see the potential conundrum here.

Having said that, usually all the doors are closed at this time, either because people are out or because they don't want to be disturbed. Using that knowledge, I checked to make sure that the bathroom was free and whether the other three that lived upstairs were in or not. From the sounds of it, Iggy was still downstairs playing League if the Polish mutters were anything to go by. Dan and Jimmy seemed to be in their rooms judging from the light under the doors.

It didn't take her long, and thankfully no one intercepted her in the corridor. I never thought I'd be relieved to not have to explain why such an attractive woman was in our house!

"Right, we're buying you a new wardrobe tomorrow." I said as she came back. In the time she'd been away I'd stowed her dagger away in my safe. I'd always thought it had been a bit excessive in terms of security – not now though! As well as this, I'd magicked a bed up for myself to sleep on.

When I first moved in a year ago, the one downside to my room was the bed. With how badly it was sagging, I honestly thought it was older than me. So, one weekend I bought a replacement. However, as it's not my house, there's no way on this God's Earth – Or Ankhseram's Earthland, in Brandish's case – that I was going to leave it to the landlord once I leave. Which meant that until tonight; I slept on two beds, my one on top of the crappy old one. And boy did it make a difference: It was like sleeping on a boat! Good thing I didn't pull a dragon slayer out of the TV, huh?

Long story short, I'd pulled the crappy bed out from underneath my one and left it on the floor. Fire hazards be damned.

"What's wrong with my wardrobe?" Brandish asked, looking offended by the statement. Having slipped into my pyjama pants, there was certain risk of a tent erecting – so to speak.

"Wearing nothing but a bikini and a coat might be acceptable in Alakitasia. Not so much here."

"I don't care what others think."

"Uh huh. Don't forget, you can't just flick your wrist and make lecherous perverts disappear. You've already tried with me. And look how that went; you've made me bigger, not smaller- I can't believe I just said that." My face turning redder than my hair, I told her I was going to get ready and left her to her own devices.

When I came back, she was sat on my bed flicking through one of the old car magazines I had on my bookshelf above the safe. In typical Brandish fashion, she looked about as interested as a kid in a maths lesson.

"Your magic four-wheelers are strange. The driver sits in with the passengers,"

"I'm surprised you care."

"I don't. As I'm stuck here though, I might as well learn what I can."

"Fair enough, however it is getting late. Whatever you want to know can wait until tomorrow." Switching the light out, I grabbed my dressing gown and threw it over myself as a makeshift duvet. "Goodnight Brandish."

"Goodnight… What was your name again?"

"Oh, come on!" Tired and defeated by the Shield of Spriggan's dry wit and brutal honesty, I just sighed exasperatedly. "Alistair. My name is Alistair."

* * *

 **So now might be a bad time to admit that this chapter was done about four months ago.**

 **Having said that there was supposed to be more to this chapter, but I felt that with anymore content it would've been a bit dull or overtly long, therefore the next bit has been moved to the next chapter. That I was intending to work on today. As part of this chapter. But haven't. And isn't.**

 **Anyway, next chapter; clothes shopping… Probably. We'll see.**


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning Brandish was up before me, as I was woken up by her kicking me in the face as she played with the swivel chair next to where I was lying.

"Jesus Christ! What the…?" Looking to the source of my rude awakening, I dropped my head back on the mattress.

Brandish managed to muster up an apology before she stood up, one foot either side of my head. Honestly not how I was expecting to start my weekend, however I was not going to complain with that view. Whether she realised how wide eyed I was from her actions or not was beyond me. However, it didn't last long as she leant on the bed to pull the blind up.

Using that as my cue to get up, I threw a shirt on and started rummaging through my drawers to see if I could find anything for her to wear.

"Right, I've got a pair of jeans that I hope will fit, and you've got a choice of t-shirts."

"I told you last night that I don't care what others think of my appearance."

"Yeah, you did. However, I'm not going to go around town with you dressed like that and risk rumours being started; about me, or you." Realising that the only way I was going to back down was if she complied, Brandish reluctantly took the jeans from me and tried them on.

Despite my freakishly narrow waist for a bloke, they somehow fitted. The legs needed rolled up, however it made them look somewhat fashionable. Probably.

Brandish then proceeded to look through my selection of shirts before delivering her thoughts on them, completely oblivious to my reddened face at her upper attire consisting of her bikini top and underarm chain choker thing:

"None of these are cute."

"In my defence, I didn't buy them for their cuteness, or lack thereof…" Opening the second drawer I found my light purple tee before passing it to her. "Try that on."

Thirty seconds later a problem became apparent. Well two problems to be specific. Because Brandish's breasts were so big, it meant the shirt fit where it touched showing off a horrendously obvious visible bra line along with the chains. Oh hey, made it to three chapters before making a breast joke!

"You cannot be serious." It was quickly discarded, along with the chains, and replaced with a black one that had an old Ford advert plastered across the front. "Again, are you serious?" Unlike the light purple one, it fit, and with the pair of Ford Thunderbirds it gave Brandish a sort of petrolhead look. I approved of it at least.

"Just tuck it in, and it'll be perfect." If looks could kill, I'd be six feet under right now. "I'm buying you a whole new wardrobe, just bear with it for a few hours and you'll never have to wear an item of my clothing ever again."

"I will kill you if I do."

Well bugger. I quite liked the idea of a woman wearing my clothes. Better enjoy it whilst it lasts.

* * *

With temporary clothes sorted, and breakfast on the cards, a horrible thought crossed my mind: Jimmy.

Let me explain, Brandish is a member of the Spriggan 12. When she'd introduced herself to me last night, she'd explicitly stated that she was one of the Shields of Spriggan. As you'll know from chapter 445 Zeref took the name Spriggan as it means 'ugly fairy,' in contrast to Mavis who he considered a beautiful fairy.

How does this make Jimmy an issue? Jimmy is from Cornwall, one of the old Celtic nations, and is a staunch believer in Cornish independence from England. As a proud Cornishman, he has an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of all things Cornish, and spriggans originate from Cornish folklore. See the problem?

Well, to avoid said problem – a) for myself, and b) for the author who forgot where he was going with that, seriously that's what you get for leaving it for at least four months you tosser! – the executive decision was made to get breakfast out. This is going to be an expensive day for me, goodbye student loan and hello bankruptcy…

"Are you ready to go?"

"Sure."

Walking out the front of the house and straight onto the street, I thought this was going to be a real eye-opener for Brandish. She didn't say anything, her expression didn't change, the mage out of place looked pretty much "in place."

She waited for me as I closed the door, making sure it was actually shut. The damn thing had a habit of sounding like it was shut but would be slightly open. It had happened once or twice coming back and just being able to push it open. Fortunately, no would be burglars had been in, as far as I was aware.

The plan was to walk to the McDonald's closest to the second shopping district in town, have breakfast, come up with a cover story for Brandish, buy her the necessities, grab supplies for dinner, back to the house and then decide what to do for the rest of the day.

In this town, there are two McDonald's; one was literally around the corner from where I live and the second one in the shopping district about twenty minutes away. My reasoning for going to the second one was so that Brandish could go window shopping as we would have to walk past most of the clothes shops to get to the fast food joint before they opened.

The quickest way to the high street meant walking along a footpath parallel to the railway line. Trains ran somewhat frequently giving Brandish an opportunity to see the difference between Alvarez's steam locomotives and the electric boxes of the real world. Not that she seemed to care much.

What she did care about though was the little furball out for a walk coming in the opposite direction. A middle-aged couple were taking a young cocker spaniel pup for a walk, it being a spaniel it couldn't walk in a straight line; everything was new and exciting to it. Not how I could describe Brandish until she caught site of the adorable puppy.

"So cute!" Before I even had a chance to ask if she wanted to go say hello Brandish was off like a shot. The little black and white dog looked up from the pavement for the first time since we'd seen it as this strange new person that looked like they wanted to be best friends as much as it did came running over. "You are just adorable, aren't you? Yes, you are, yes you are!" She'd crouched down for this dog giving it a big fuss around its head and ears, whilst it barked and yipped in excitement.

"He's adorable, how old if you don't mind me asking?" I asked the pup's owners who were watching Brandish cooing their pet.

"16 weeks," The couple and I got chatting about their newest family member. The dog was called Harry, they'd had him from eight weeks old and this was his second ever walk. I asked if they'd ever had a dog before, or spaniel's specifically to which they'd answered they'd never had a spaniel before. We talked for about five minutes about owning a dog when the woman threw me a curveball straight to the face out of nowhere.

"Your girlfriend seems completely taken with Harry."

For a second, I was completely speechless, my eyes felt wide and my mouth pursed shut. Whether the couple noticed my demeanour change or not I'll never know but I managed to recover before Brandish had a chance to say anything.

"She hasn't had a chance to meet mine yet." I managed to recover, earning me a look from the green haired woman before she went back to playing with Harry.

I chatted with Harry's owners for a couple more minutes before they made their goodbyes as young Harry was beginning to tire out from playing with his new best friend. Brandish reluctantly handed Harry back to his parents and we parted ways.

"You didn't tell me you had a dog." Brandish stated matter-of-factly as we continued on.

"It hadn't exactly been top of my priorities list if I'm absolutely honest with you." I pulled my phone out, found a picture of my dog and handed her the device. She took a moment to examine the image before stopping in her tracks, completely taken aback.

"Oh my, I had no idea he would be so cute!" The picture was of my dog, a Sussex spaniel called Harvey, holding three tennis balls in his mouth. "His ears look so fluffy too! Where is he now and why is he not at your house?"

"He's at home with my parents, I only live here because I'm at university." As Harvey's existence was clearly earning me some brownie points here, I neglected to mention that when my parents were thinking of getting him originally, I was not interested; namely because I didn't want the responsibility of looking after another living creature. Looks like that mentality was going to have to change pretty quickly, for more than one reason.

I regaled tales of Harvey's exploits to Brandish as we made it to the fast food joint. By the time we got there, she hadn't done any window shopping and was instead completely enamoured with Harvey. Impressive seeing as how she hadn't met him yet.

We ordered breakfast, collected it then went upstairs.

"We need to think up a cover story for you." I said before taking a bite out of a hash brown.

"Why do I need a cover story? Why not just be honest about the situation." Brandish asked, clearly unamused at the idea and the effort I was putting into this.

"Because I don't fancy either of us being sectioned under the Mental Health Act…"

"I don't know what that is."

"And I'm more than happy to make sure you don't find out through first hand experience complete with straitjacket and padded cell."

About twenty minutes later we had – and by we, I mean I, because Brandish had no interest in this – come up with a real world back story for her.

"So basically; you and I are childhood friends. You and your mum moved to the US when you were a kid. Grammi was murdered by a stalker colleague a year after you moved there. You didn't pay much attention in history, geography or religious classes but did enough to get by in everything else. You've moved back to Britain; the airline lost your luggage, and someone stole your bag with your purse and passport in it when you were coming here from the airport. Is that good, are we good?"

"Yes," the green haired woman replied disinterestedly whilst starring off into space stirring the remains of her coffee.

We left the restaurant and headed back down the high street, me being on Brandish' left because most of the clothing stores would be on her right. I was lost in thought, looking downward thinking what stuff Brandish would need and where would be best to get it if possible.

Out of nowhere I saw a hand in my peripheral vision go to grab my left arm. Having had scenes from a recent police drama still fresh in my mind where the villain's way of ambushing was to grab his victims by the shoulder from behind before punching them square in the face before taking them off elsewhere, you can probably understand my reaction and why time seemed to slow down.

I turned to my left, raising my left arm to knock the rogue hand away whilst bringing my right fist up by my jaw. In my head this was all happening at almost a frame by frame rate like when you use the comma and full stop keys on a paused YouTube video. It wasn't until I saw a familiar face a couple of feet away accompanying the rogue hand that I realised all was well.

"Jesus Christ Kat you scared the crap out of me!" We'd been stopped by a couple of friends of mine from university.

"Scared you? Ali you were just about to go full ninja on me!" Kat, who the rogue hand belonged to, I'd known for years from secondary school, college and now university. She was with Laura, who was the familiar face I'd recognised. I didn't know Laura anywhere near as well as I did Kat.

"I just saw a hand out the corner of my eye going for my arm, I didn't know it was you!"

"We'd just seen you coming out of McDonald's, tried calling after you but you just ignored us," Kat pouted, obviously unimpressed with me.

"Sorry, I was totally away with the fairies, didn't hear you at all." For a split second I thought the fairies' comment had earned me a scowl from Brandish, but I might have imagined that. Before Kat and I could continue, Laura cleared her throat.

"Aren't you going to introduce us, Ali?"

"Oh, yeah. Kat, Laura, this is Brandish. Brandish, this is Kat and Laura who are on the same course as me here."

"Hello,"

"How do you two know each other?" Laura asked.

"He pulled me out of his T.V. yesterday." My mouth hung agape, completely at a loss for words. Kat and Lauren looked like they were about to back away slowly and then make a run for it. "Sorry, I wanted to see your reaction. For some reason you're fun to mess with." She directed at me.

Heart attack and mental asylum averted; Brandish gave a concise version of the cover story I'd given her; leaving out the part about her mother understandably.

"I thought I recognised that shirt as one of Ali's," Kat thought aloud as Brandish explained what had happened to her non-existent luggage.

"That's really thoughtful of you Ali to offer to buy Brandish new clothes." Laura added.

"We were just going to go into that shop there," The green-haired mage said, pointing to the shop behind her. I watched as Kat and Laura's cheeks began to blush slightly, which confused me until I saw what shop Brandish had pointed out.

"Wait, we were?!" Brandish first choice of clothes shops was Ann Summers!

"Yeah, I saw it on the way up. It looks cute."

For those of you not in the know, Ann Summers is a high street retail store that specialises in two things: lingerie and sex toys. They're pretty much the only licenced sex shops in the country that don't have a sign saying, 'entrance at the rear.' Double entendre, best ones are always the unintentional ones. For anyone from their advertising department reading this, I take cash only.

I don't know if Kat and Lauren were going to offer to help us with clothes shopping, but judging from their expressions, I somehow doubt they were going to now.

"Why are you choosing a lingerie shop to go into first…?"

"I need underwear, don't I? I can't go around commando, you pervert." Kat and Laura seemed to take that as their cue to depart and bid us goodbye. Judging from the over-the-shoulder looks it would seem that my plan to minimise rumours about Brandish and I died a death at the first hurdle…

With Brandish unperturbed by my outburst, we both headed in. My word was I in for an eyeful.

* * *

 **So, I have another confession to make. The part with Kat and Laura was pretty much the bit I wanted to write most of all in this fic. All the way back from when I first came up with it, as it's based on true events from when I was at uni. However, as I got closer to it, I needed somewhere to go with it, and after a bit of research found out that there was genuinely an Ann Summers on the high street where said true event happened.**

 **On the one hand it completely derailed where I had originally wanted to go with that scene and made it less fun to write, but on the other hand I'm hoping that whilst I didn't enjoy writing it as much as I had expected, I'm hoping you found it at least somewhat amusing.**

 **Let us know what you thought. Did it work? Did it not? Do you work for Ann Summers' advertising or marketing division? Because I was half-serious about the cash only thing ;)**

 **Anyway, see you next time. Whenever that'll be. Hasta luego!**


	4. Chapter 4

**So, this chapter is dedicated as big fuck you to the cunt who's review I deleted :D They came up with a real original, thoughtful and heart felt comment that took all of two seconds to delete. And had the opposite effect to the desired one by encouraging me to keep going with this. Well done that child!**

 **Anyway, singling sad acts out, go read the rest o' this:**

* * *

Following Brandish into the lingerie shop for some reason had my heartrate going up significantly; it was a bit like being a teenager caught reading a men's magazine. Brandish had simply stopped after walking into the store, looking all around.

"Are all stores like this here?"

"If you mean 'are they filled with every conceivable type of ladies' underwear known to man,' no, no they aren't."

Ignoring my nervous quip, the mage out of place started looking around at the various garments on display. As it was early on a Saturday morning, we had the shop to ourselves pretty much, save for the two sales assistants pottering about. One of the women, a young brunette about the same age as me, wondered over to Brandish to ask if she needed any help. The shield nodded her head and the pair started going around the various clothes racks with all sorts of bras and knickers on display.

Naively I followed behind, half curious and half because I'd yet to find somewhere to sit down. The shop was laid out in quarters; the left side was underwear, middle was swimwear, the right was night clothes and the rear was 50 Shades of Grey territory. The thing I noticed was that the closer you got to the back wall, the more risqué the items on offer became; at the front of the store is just regular old bras and knickers, a bit vivid in colour and lacey patterns, then as you get toward the middle you start getting corsets, garter belts and stockings thrown into the mix, and just before you enter Sunstone territory you get bras that are more like harnesses and crotchless knickers. What a view that would've been earlier this morning!

After about 15 minutes or so, the nerves had started to die down and the boredom was beginning to set in. I made my excuses and found the only collection of seats in the shop, right at the back of the store surrounded by various types of dildos, vibrators and plugs…

If someone had told me last week that I was going to spend this Saturday morning first with my head between Brandish Mu's legs before being followed up an hour later flanked by tens of plastic, glass and rubber penises I'd have told them to quit the wacky baccy.

Brandish had picked out a selection of stuff to try on in various sizes; obviously Alvarez sizes didn't match UK ones. The sails assistant showed her to the fitting rooms which were at the back of the store left of the sex and BDSM toys.

"Ara, why didn't you tell me this shop doubled up as some sort of sex dungeon, pervert?"

"You didn't exactly give me much time to say anything before you just waltzed in!"

"Whatever," Without another word the Shield of Spriggan took her selection into the changing area and closed the curtain.

Resigning myself to waiting induced boredom, I took my phone out to have a browse at the world wide web. A couple of minutes later though I heard the curtain rail slide across. I paid it no mind because, even though it was early, I thought someone else must've come in wanting to try something on.

"What do you think?" I heard Brandish ask.

"What do you mean 'what do I think- ?!" Looking away from my phone I was completely speechless. Brandish stood in the changing room, curtain drawn back, wearing a wet-look one-piece outfit that had a cleavage that plunged down to her naval. Said cleavage was held together with three buckles across the front. "Oh my God,"

Trying not to make it obvious that the 'gentleman downstairs' was trying to do it's best impression of the various toys that flanked the seat I was in, I rushed over to the green haired woman, turning her around pushing her back into the changing room and closing the curtain behind. At that point I saw the back of the outfit as well; thong cut, sheer mesh that only went up to her lower back.

"What are you doing?" Brandish protested, about as indignant as she could muster having turned back around to look me straight in the eye. Even so, I could see her behind in the mirror.

"What am I doing? What are you doing? This is a shop open to the public, you don't just go showing off like that, as much I'm enjoying the view."

"I told you already, I don't care what other people think."

As I was about to retort but we both heard footsteps come to a stop just outside. "Excuse me, is everything alright?" The shop assistant who had helped Brandish had come over to make sure she was OK, and that we weren't bumping nasties. I took that as my cue to vacate.

"Sorry, she's not quite used to British customs yet,"

After that little episode, I went back to the internet whilst Brandish tried various other pieces on. About half an hour went by when Brandish re-emerged from the changing room, back in my black shirt and jeans. "Help me with these."

A 'please' would have been nice, but anyway I went and helped her take the stuff she wanted to the till and the stuff that didn't fit or she didn't like back to where she'd got it from. The woman behind the till totted up the total for Brandish's selection, surprisingly it wasn't quite as eye watering as I'd expected. As I went to get my wallet out the assistant passed a comment to Brandish.

"That's very thoughtful of your boyfriend," without a flicker or change in expression Brandish's retort was sharp and to the point.

"He's not my boyfriend."

"Oh, I see. One of _those_ relationships," the assistant winked slyly, implying we were in some sort of financial domination type relationship.

Stopping dead in my tracks as I was getting my card out, I gave her a withering look. "I'm doing her a favour. Plus, I don't bark on all fours." Glancing to my companion I saw an embarrassed blush on her cheeks.

After paying for the various items we left, heading across the street to a locksmith next. Brandish passed comment about it not looking particularly attractive. We were only there to get another key cut for the house so she could have some independence and wouldn't have to rely totally on me.

Once that was sorted, we headed to various other outlets and department stores. By lunchtime we both had many shopping bags, and I had a wallet that was decidedly lighter than I would have liked…

Brandish had changed into a new outfit after we'd finished in the last shop. My shirt and jeans had been replaced with a purple blouse and a black miniskirt. I hadn't the bottle to check what underwear she'd replaced her bikini with…

Before we were going to head back to the house, we made a detour to a supermarket to get her some household essentials, shampoo, soap, toothbrush, toothpaste and a cheap Nokia type phone. There was a quick stop into the fruit isle too for a small tub of diced mangoes. With all that sorted we headed back to the house.

Whilst making lunch at the house I also blitzed the mangoes, made a sugar syrup, mixed the two together and stuck it in the freezer. Unsure of what to do for the rest of the day I asked my new roommate what she fancied doing, to which she asked to go to the nearest beach.

* * *

Fortunately, living on an island meant that the beach was a 20-minute walk southbound. However, there was a quick detour to the stadium I worked at to buy Brandish a ticket for the match tomorrow. Why did I buy her a ticket? Basically, so I could keep an eye on her whilst I was at work. Let's face it; she's not even been here a day yet; would you trust an alien to manage on its own after landing on the planet less than 24 hours ago? Didn't think so. Oh, you would? Never mind then.

Anyway, that sorted we went down to the beach. The route was pretty much a straight line down to the town's pier. Going onto the pier was a bit of a wash with a bloody gale blowing in off the sea. Mind it gave us a talking point.

"What are those crosses on your head?"

"Hair clips."

"Seriously? How are they staying put in this wind?"

"You ask too many questions." Abandoning the pier, we started to stroll along the promenade for a bit before Brandish veered off down to the water's edge. It was slow going though because she almost managed to break her ankle on more than one occasion navigating the shingle shore. "Why is the beach covered in blasted pebbles?" The green-haired woman was frustrated because her high-heeled sandals weren't exactly ideal for traversing the shingle beach. Most beaches in the south east of England are shingle beaches, mostly – if not entirely – for coastal defence.

Having successfully navigated two thirds of the way down to the beach, the shingle struck again; Brandish got her heel stuck and stumbled. I managed to catch her but with her freeing her foot at the same time caused the both of us to fall over. Before either of us knew it, we were on the ground, Brandish on top of me, faces little more than a few inches away from each other.

"I'm so sorry, I don't know what happened! Are you alright?" I asked, making a conscious effort not to look down at the Shield's cleavage. She muttered an affirmative as she sat up on her knees, taking her sandals off. Well that's the third time in less than a day we've ended up in compromising situations together; first face between her legs, second in the changing room together, and now reverse missionary into cowboy at the beach. Christ, when's doggy style and 69's turns? Ah shit, I've given the author ideas now…

Before things could get any weirder, we both stood up and went down to the water's edge. "This beach would be much nicer with sand." Brandish lamented, pebbles clacking together underfoot.

"Even though I grew up not far from a shingle beach, I agree. But if it was sand then it wouldn't be around for long. Plus you wouldn't be able to do this," Picking up a handful of pebbles I threw them in individually, managing to skip one about three times before a wave crashed down on top of it.

The green haired woman watched as I picked up another few pebbles before picking one up herself. She stared at it for a bit before throwing it in the sea. We stood in the same spot for about 20 minutes throwing pebbles, careful not to hit anyone or anything that might cross our paths. We even had a couple of games; who could throw the furthest, who could make the best splash and despite the waves who could skip it furthest. If you want to know Brandish won 2:1.

When the waves began to lap at Brandish's ankles, we took that as our cue to head back to the promenade. We took a long way home, going up toward the university's main campus and back along my normal route back to the house.

* * *

It was about early evening by the time we got back to the house. I pretty much went straight to the kitchen to start making dinner, Brandish watching me as I went about prepping everything.

Not long after I started Jimmy came downstairs and into the kitchen. "You alright Miserable?" Jimmy was about two or three inches taller than me, about three stone heavier, and light brown hair down to his shoulder blades tied in a low ponytail.

"You alright, Poor?" Jimmy was a metal head that always wore black and always had a septum ring in, great lad to be fair, but on his first appearance in the story you'd be forgiven for thinking otherwise. He looked at Brandish with an eye of suspicion then to me.

"The fuck is she?"

"This is Brandish, she's from-"

"The Spriggan 12."

I just stared at her incredulously. "Really?" She just gave me a look, as if her eyes were shrugging.

"Spriggan 12? Aye, that's some Cornish folklore right there. You from Cornwall or something?" Realising that I was going to have to listen to Jimmy go on about Cornish independence again I just got on with the job of cooking dinner. Jimmy started making his own as well as he went on and on about the supposed benefits of separating from England but not the United Kingdom.

Brandish went and sat down on the sofa, a look of total disinterest on her features. Having said that she did engage with heavy metal rocker, explaining that Spriggan 12 was just a name that she and a group of people online she knew called themselves.

"She's going to be staying with us for a while," I mentioned nonchalantly.

It was Jimmy's turn to look incredulous. "Really? Why's that?"

"I was forced to leave my home, and this was the only place I could think of." Ouch, whilst true, that hurt.

"Do you not have any family in the US you could go to?" Don't know if Jimmy asked that to genuinely probe for more information or because he wasn't happy with the idea of another undeclared resident living with us alongside Iggy.

"I was raised by my mother in Alvarez singlehandedly before she was murdered. I don't have any family." That clearly struck a nerve, and if it wasn't for the fact we'd found out that there was a town in the US called Alvarez, we might've been sunk there.

"Your mum was murdered? I'm sorry, I feel awful now. Ali, why didn't you mention that earlier?"

"Hardly my place to mention it, if Brandish wants people to know then it's up to her to tell them."

"Exactly." Pretty much at that exact moment our dinner was ready to be plated up. Nothing special today unfortunately, beef burgers and chips. Mind, after a suggestion from Jimmy we spruced it up a little by putting paprika on the chips.

Brandish took her plate and went upstairs to my room. Whether that was because she was annoyed with Jimmy or not, I don't know. Might even have been because of me to be fair. Before I followed her up, I mentioned to Jimmy that Brandish would be at work with us tomorrow. Jimmy also works at the stadium in the same role as I do just in a different part.

Anyway, we ate dinner, both enjoying it quite a bit despite being nothing fancy. I took the plates downstairs to be washed and came back up with a small glass for the mage out of place.

"Is that what I think it is?" Brandish's eyes had lit up as I handed her the glass with two yellow globs of frozen food. "Star mango gelato?"

"It's the closest I can make; mango sorbet." A look of devastation appeared on her face as it sunk in.

"My star mango gelato," taking the glass and spoon with tears in her eyes she tried a bit, probably out of politeness. Pretty much the same reaction as yesterday occurred when she realised how sweet and fruity my sorbet was. "…!" She was so enamoured with it that she gave herself brain freeze!

"You alright?" I asked as Brandish clutched her head for a second. When it subsided, she pulled my head into her chest, catching me totally by surprise! "Uh Brandish? What are you doing? Brandish?!"

As I struggled to remove my face from her buxom chest, she was making her cutesy face, apparently utterly smitten by my new-found ability to make sweets. "You're going to be newest pet!"

Unsure of how to react to that announcement, now struggling to breathe, I just woofed into her chest. That had a partially desired affect as she let me go for a second. "I had no idea you could be so cute…!"

"We'll see about that…"

* * *

 **Not going to lie, this was starting to drag towards the end whilst writing it. So might as well stop there.**

 **Next chapter; football. Or something, I dunno, we'll see.**


End file.
